Wedding: Flower Shopping

by Meghann on September 20, 2012

Oh, man. After trying to be one of those relaxed go-with-the-flow brides – and repeating over and over again that I don’t care about the flowers – I realized something yesterday…I do care about the flowers.

Not that I’m saying it’s a bad thing, it was just something I didn’t realize I had in me. I’ve never cared about flowers before – I told Derek when we first started dating not to waste his money on them, if he wanted to buy me something pretty, buy me something pretty that I can eat (like edible arrangements – yum!). But the more into wedding planning I’ve gotten, the more I’ve realized how a beautiful bouquet can be the perfect accent to a gorgeous wedding ensemble and, now, when somebody asks if I prefer “this flower” or “that flower” I’ve realized that I actually have an answer and a genuine opinion – who knew?

My aunt and I have been emailing back and forth on wedding flowers (she’s helping us go the DIY route – more information HERE) and I think she’s the one that’s been gently pushing the flower lover out of me. Her passion for flowers is inspiring and her love is rubbing off. After a few back and forths over email, some heavy pinning, and a face-to-face meeting back in July, we were able to narrow it down to a couple of inspirational bouquets.

Here’s what I love: anemones (the white flowers with the dark centers), dusty miller (the grey leaves), and baby’s breath. It’s been challenging picking flowers that work for a rustic winter theme, but I think we’ve stumbled upon a combo that works well together.

I’m especially obsessed with the anemones.

When your wedding colors are navy and grey, it’s hard to find a flower the works. I’ve discovered that when you ask for “blue flowers” they’re either going to be light blue or more of a purple (navy is TOUGH). The anemones are actually a white flower with a black center, but the black almost looks navy in photos. Basically every bouquet that I’ve fallen in love with have anemones in it, it’s my new favorite flower (well, my first favorite flower – can’t say I really had one before).

The anemones, dusty miller, and baby’s breath are a must, everything else is fair game in the flower department as far as i’m concerned.

After doing some research – and getting a grasp on what I like and don’t like – my aunt and I headed to the wholesale flower shop yesterday to see what they have in stock, what they will have in stock in January, and to actually see some flowers in person (up until this point it was all photos).

The wholesale flower shop was fun. They basically have two large refrigerated rooms that are filled with wall-to-wall flowers. There were so many beautiful flowers in almost every color imaginable. All the colors were so beautiful, vibrant, and rich, that I almost wished I was having a summer wedding just so I could have has many colorful flowers as possible in my bouquet and arrangements.

Unfortunately most of the flowers I’ve been eyeing aren’t in season yet (well, duh – it’s only September!), but my aunt was curious to see if I was drawn to anything else once I saw all the flowers in person.

I found myself drawn to the creamier flowers over the white

I was really digging the eucalyptus (though if did look a bit grayer when in a bunch)

And I preferred the “flatter” flowers over the open ones.

Other than that, it was tough to find anything that could really work based off of what they had on hand. Still, we wanted to have some fun, so we purchased all of our favorites to see if any of the flowers could work.

Prepped and ready for assembling!

My aunt used her super-flower powers and worked some magic.

10 minutes later (I told you my aunt had super-flower powers!) we had a beautiful bouquet.

It was gorgeous, but unfortunately not the look we wanted. Sigh.

Don’t worry – I would still consider this a positive experience. It made us both realize that “tall” flowers aren’t going to work for our vision, the creamy flowers photograph with a yellowish tint, and the eucalyptus is too green for our liking (we’re trying to stay away from the green since it is a January wedding).

A beautiful bouquet, but not the bouquet for me.

Oh! I do have some good news!

After falling in love with baby’s breath bouquets in photos, I can officially say I’ve fallen in love with the idea in person as well.

The bridesmaid will have baby’s breath bouquets with some dusty miller to accent on the outside.

We combined two different genres of baby’s breath to make the bouquet and discovered we’ll be able to create 4 bouquets out of roughly three batches of baby’s breath – good to know!

The team at the flower place (Florida Wholesale Florist <- for any Orlandolocals!) was amazing. They let us use their space, let us borrow a pair of scissors, and even wrote out what flowers we’ll need as an unofficial pre-order (we’ll call back with our official order in December once we know the final flower counts, we just need to give them two weeks notice). The good news is that they should have anemones in January (whoop! whoop!), as well as the rest of the flowers we’re after. However, they will not have dusty miller or the succulents, which isn’t that big of a deal since we can pick those up locally at Lowe’s or another retail garden center.

For someone who once didn’t care anything about the flowers, I’m very excited about them now! I can’t wait to see them all come together in January!

I told my planner I want peonies for my July 2013 wedding, but it turns out they’re not in season- she named a bunch of fancy schmancy flowers that were in te color palate- so I said ok. Guess we’ll find out next summer how they look!Jen @nutcaseinpoint recently posted..TWO birthdays!

I never thought I’d say this but I LOVE the baby’s breath bouquet! It’s simple and rustic! I helped my sister in law pick out flowers and she actually got hers at HyVee to save money. It’s the midwestern version of Publix. Her colors were fushia, purple and green and they came out gorgeous, everyone was shocked to find out where she got them done!Katie @ Peace Love & Oats recently posted..Thursday Thoughts

I have no idea what our centerpieces are yet. 🙁 We have a semi-idea, but nothing set it stone. That’s why we didn’t put in the full order for flowers – we’re not sure if we’ll need extra for centerpieces or not.

Gotcha. I’m a fall wedding (October 6th, SO SOON!), so I’m not a ton of help here, but for our centerpieces, since doing flowers can really add up (unless you’ve got a hook-up, I guess, ha), we’re doing non-floral options like apples, hypercium (sp?) berries, pine cones, lotus pods, and candles. For winter, you could certainly do pine cones and lotus pods in simple vases or mason jars maybe (if you did mini pine cones), as well as candles in the big metal lanterns or hurricane vases to help keep costs down.

I’ve always wanted lilies for my wedding … ones grown from a family farm in the Maritimes. I don’t care if any of the rest of my venue or anyone else in the bridal party has flowers, but I will have my lilies. 🙂
(Not that I’m anywhere near remotely close to marriage, it’s just always something I’ve known.)
I like how delicate the baby’s breath looks in a bouquet.Chelsie @ Balance, Not Scale recently posted..Thursday Toss-Up

The succulents would be really fantastic for centerpieces. Not sure if that’s the look you’re going for, but I really like it and they work well in low arrangements so people can see over the tops of them.

I’m a huge flower lover. My sister, who is 12 years older than me, used to work in a floral shop and my parents are big time gardeners. Flowers are going to be really important in my wedding! I love your choices. Anemones are also one of my favorites. Beautiful.

That’s what I found out about me too – I didn’t think I cared and when it came time to actually make my bouquets, I still didn’t care 🙂 And we only had flowers for people – no decorations.lynne @ lgsmash recently posted..Food: Philly Cheesesteak Pizza

I didn’t really care about flowers at my wedding. I knew I wanted bouquets for me and my MOH and boutonnieres for the groom, BM, and fathers and that was it. I had a friend do them and I didn’t even see a single flower until the day of the wedding. They were beautiful though. I choose an all red bouquet with ranunculus (had never heard of these until we ordered), garden roses, and calla lilies.

I was kind of the same way, I didn’t really care about flowers, just knew I didn’t want roses. I fell in love with dahlias while looking at pictures of fall weddings. Now I can’t wait to see how everything turns out next week at the wedding! I love the look of all baby’s breath, very classy and perfect for a winter wedding!Lindsay Margaret recently posted..Low Fat Banana Bread

I have the perfect website for you. It’s http://www.freshroses.com. I didn’t buy any of the flowers on the website but I did pick out all my flowers from their October list! It saved me so much time and I was able to tell my florist exactly what I wanted. Good luck!

Oh and I know what you mean about the shades of colors. My colors are cream, gold and fig. Fig is a VERY hard color. I had to ask my florist, “So when you mean by plum, are you leaning towards purple? Because if so, lean the other way!” : P

I got married in October and we used herbs (along with flowers–but I can’t remember which) in our bouquets and boutonnieres—I loved it! Not only were the flowers gorgeous, they smelled great! It may sound a little strange but in execution it was gorgeous. We had potted herbs for our centerpieces, our tables were each a name of a different herb and our cake topper was our monogram surrounded by herbs.Lisa @ The Splattered Apron recently posted..Pumpkin French Toast

You’re SO right- a gorgeous bouquet can work wonders! 🙂 The anenemones and dusty miller are a great combo… and ranunculus are pretty amazing too, and should be in season!!! 😉Lauren @ Every Last Detail recently posted..The Utter & Complete Truth Behind Every Last Detail

I have to say that I have had the exact same attitude towards flowers and I have totally gone back on everything I told my fiance about them when we first got engaged. We will still be going light on the flowers but I am way more into them than I thought I would be. I adore the baby’s breath bouquet, baby’s breath will be heavily featured in our wedding and we are also going the DIY route. I can’t wait to see how it all turns out for you!Chelsea @ CardioandCocktails recently posted..Long Islands with a Twist

I worked at a flower shop in high school and loved doing weddings. Recently came in handy when my friend had a floral disaster at her wedding a few weeks ago 🙂 may fav flowers are white hydrangeas so those will def be at my wedding….one day lol

I had bright pink peonies. Like you, I never really had a “favorite” flower before my wedding, but during planning I realized I loved loved loved peonies. Fortunately they were in season for my June wedding!

I sooooo did not care about the flowers at my wedding other than I wanted hydrangeas! My parents worked with the florist because I just couldn’t handle it!Maureen @ Organically Mo recently posted..ABC {Almond Butter Craziness}

I love peonies but my wedding was in september and they weren’t in season. So I chose my other favorite flower: the rose. I had a small bouquet with tiny roses in pink nuances, very cute yet very elegant.

I’m a sucker for baby’s breath as part of wedding flowers…but I’m biased because I used big poufs as our centerpieces. I never thought I would love a “filler flower” but it looked amazing! Plus, it holds up well so you won’t have to worry about wilting, etc.

I also love anemones (so so so pretty) and was strongly considering putting them in my bouquet as well! Just a quick note (although your aunt probably knows more about this than I do since I’m no flower expert): apparently anemones can wilt/flop over if they aren’t cut/prepped properly. A good friend of mine had them in her bouquet and they drooped over before her ceremony even started…she was so upset! My florist did mention that they are delicate…so make sure to read up on how to care for them since they aren’t as hearty as other blooms!Katie recently posted..Get the look: a bright pencil skirt for fall

Haha! This sounds like me! I thought I didn’t care about the flowers, but in the end my mom and the florist locked me out of the room and ordered the flowers. On the wedding day, I was blown away! They got write white anemones that I really wanted despite the fact that they were $14 dollars a stem flown in from Europe…Laura recently posted..The Taco Truck